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More foreign aid the goal in Bucket Walk for Australian Aid

Ocean Reef resident Sarah Laundy is organising the Bucket Walk for Australian Aid.

VOLUNTEERS for the Campaign for Australian Aid posed with buckets on their heads in a Perth fountain last week to promote this Friday’s Bucket Walk for Australian Aid.

The event, on June 24, will start at 3pm at the fountain at Forrest Place, where participants will fill their buckets and walk to the fountain at Exchange Plaza outside Federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann’s office.

There, they will deliver a bucketload of signatures from more than 80,000 Australians calling for an increase in aid.

“In the last budget, aid was reduced to a trickle and we need to get it flowing again,” Oxfam’s WA campaign co-ordinator Paddy Cullen said.

“It is currently at the lowest level of gross national income (GNI) in Australia’s history – at just 23 cents in every $100 of national income.

“This is less than a third of the UN recommendation of 70 cents in every $100 income.

“It beggars belief that the Government has now cut more than $11.3 billion from Australian aid.

“Australia’s aid contribution has made a huge difference to the lives of millions of people including supplying water to over two million people each year.

“This walk is a way to show that we want to see aid flowing again and saving lives.

“More than 1400 children die each day as a result of unclean water and sanitation.

“Girls and women are particularly vulnerable and have to spend 125 million hours a day collecting water which takes them out of school, paid employment and community life.

“With aid at its lowest levels ever in the history of Australia, many people are missing out.

“We’re asking all political parties at this election to pledge to increase aid to 0.7 per cent of GNI by 2030 in line with our global responsibility.”

Ocean Reef resident Sarah Laundy is one of the key organisers of the walk and is doing an internship with Oxfam as part of her diploma of community services at North Metropolitan Tafe.